Corus again stronger than ever
3 October 2007 17:00 PM | Last modified: 17:58
The organizers of the Corus Chess Tournament again succeeded in bringing together a stronger participants list than ever before. In the Grandmaster group A of the 70th edition, 11-27 January 2008, not only the fresh world champion Anand plays but also the numbers 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the WCC in Mexico. (The organizers state, just like the Mexico organizers, that it will be the “strongest tournament in history” but that’s questionable.)
Besides Anand, Kramnik, Gelfand, Leko and Aronian also Topalov, Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov and Radjabov will participate in the traditional tournament at Wijk aan Zee. Loek van Wely will be the Dutch participant.
Strongest tournament
Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed too by the field. But “strongest tournament ever” is probably not correct. Mark Crowther already expressed his doubts when the Mexicans said the same a month ago. According to him, the strongest tournament ever held is Las Palmas 1996, with category 21 and an average rating of 2756. Participants were Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Karpov and Ivanchuk. Then comes Dortmund 2001 (cat. 21, ave. 2755) and Linares 1998 (cat. 21, ave. 2752).
Four-event match
Both main sponsor Corus and the tournament committee have decided to organize a double-round four-event match with former winners. Participants will be Viktor Kortchnoi (who won four times), Lajos Portisch (won four times), Jan Timman (won twice), and Ljubomir Ljubojevich (won once). The ‘Honorary Group’ will play in the last week of the tournament, at the same time as the traditional decathlons.
B and C
Besides these two special groups the grandmasters groups B en C are being organized. In the grandmasters group B Nigel Short, who won two times in group A, and Etienne Bacrot, a young and strong player from France (21st on the world rankings of October 2007), have confirmed their participation. The participants in these two groups will be announced later by the Corus Chess organization.
Renewed website
As of today the complete chess history of the Corus Chess Tournament can be found on the tournament website. For more than a year international master Ruud Janssen has worked on the website, together with webmaster Dennis van Veen. The result is excellent: from now on statistics, final scores and all games can be found easily on this website.
Participants Grandmaster Group A 2008
Name Birth Rating World
ranking
GM Viswanathan Anand 1969 2801 1
GM Vassily Ivanchuk 1969 2787 2
GM Vladimir Kramnik 1975 2785 3
GM Veselin Topalov 1975 2769 4
GM Peter Leko 1979 2755 5
GM Shakhryar Mamedyarov 1985 2752 7
GM Teymour Radjabov 1987 2742 8
GM Levon Aronian 1982 2741 9
GM Boris Gelfand 1968 2736 11
GM Michael Adams 1971 2729 13
GM Magnus Carlsen 1990 2714 17
GM Judit Polgar 1976 2708 20
GM Pavel Eljanov 1983 2681 30
GM Loek van Wely 1972 2680 32
Average rating: 2741
Category: 20
Participants honorary four-event match 2008
Name Birth Rating CCT
victories
GM Viktor Kortchnoi 1931 2611 4
GM Lajos Portisch 1937 2530 4
GM Jan Timman 1951 2559 2
GM Ljubomir Ljubojevic 1950 2550 1
The 70th Corus Chess Tournament is being held from January 11 to January 27 2008.
You’re wrong in evaluating tournament on the basis of the average rating.Not only for inflaction (which of course exist) but also because is esasier to obtain a super average rating with few players,but of course the tournament is no stronger,but weaker because we miss some strong players.Corus has 14 players,and almost all the stronger and more interesting ones.
The main tool for evaluating the strength of a tournament is the categories system, which is based on evaluating average rating. I’m not wrong doing that, it’s the accepted system. Perhaps it’s a corrupt system, but it’s the system that we have right now.
why not Karjakin
oh my, it will be fun. can’t wait
Go Chuki!
yes,I know it’s the standard way to evaluate them,but it’s wrong,just imagine a tournament of 2 people:Anand and Ivanchuk,number 1 and number 2.Try to beat this average rating
Instead Corus has also the other top players,who have a bit less rating but I don’t think that Kramnik Topalov Leko and Aronian can weaken a tournament
I have to agree with Tim on this. The number of players is a factor neglected (if I`m not mistaken) in the categories system. This is simply a statistical mistake, as Tim points out. Therefore, the whole category idea is nonsense. By the way, why not also include the number of (recent) ex-world champions or candidates in the formula?
It really does seem to me that this is about the strongest tournament you can get. With Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and Leko you have all the four world champion match and tournament players of the last years. Ivanchuk is also a FIDE world championship final candidate, which is good as well. The only ones missing are Ponomariov and Kasim. And, ah well, Kasparov of course…
I agree that the way to value a tournament is flawed, but I notice that neither of you who critiscize it has a solution.
but anyway yes the average ELO rating can only be a pointer to how strong a tournament is. it would be more interesting with something that took into account number of players. I think calculating it after the number of games played in combination with the average ELO would be a good way, since the higher number of games is one large factor in what makes tournaments with many players harder to win. (but on the other hand, that system would probably be flawed too in some other way, so maybe its better to have this ELO average that everyone knows doesnt say that much. for example, it would maybe suit some better to play many games against fewer opponents than just one game against many, and vice versa).
What I wanted to point out is that it’s a question of nomenclature. Don’t call it the strongest tournament ever, call it the strongest 14-player round-robin ever.
I think one good idea for evaluating super tournaments would be: how many top-10 players are there? as a main criteria.
Then you can add tournament average rating and also a bonus for double-round robin tournament (so everybody as the same colours againt everyboy else).
Very close to all top 10 participating. Any idea why Moro (6) and Shirov (10) were not invited?
The whole point about what is wrong with using the average Elo to assess the greatness of a tournament can be summed up, IMO, with the following comparison.
Which would you regard higher:
-) a tournament that has the world’s number 1 through 4
-) a tournament that has the world’s number 1 through 8
or (you guessed it!)
-) a tournament that has the world’s number 1 through 12
To me there is no doubt that the last one is both the more difficult to put together and the more difficult to win, therefore higher esteemed. Category however will tell us that the first is the best. Which is true - ratingwise, but to many people not ‘prestige-wise’.
Bottom line? Don’t confuse ‘category’ for ‘prestige’ :).
That’s exactly my point,thanks Marvol
The whole point what`s wrong with this discussion is that is it a rather piontless discussion. Peter is, at first, perfectly right to doubt the statements made by the organisation. He, as an objective journalist, has to check and verify this.
A tournament with the six strongest players in the world ( double rounded ) is on average far more stronger than this tournament. And on that requirement, corus will never be the `strongest` tournament in the world.
I would say there is no objective comparison method for those two different catergories of tournaments. The dependence on luck of color ( whitte or black) against Kramnik (corus) or the results of other participants (see for example Sofia this year) are factors you, for example, can not objectively translate in a value. So when you look at what`s the most respected way to value a chessplayer and therefore, the line-up in a tournament it`s (av-)rating.
I understand the sentiments, but I think Peter is totally right in publishing this. fm and the others; I like the try to find another way to rate a tournament, but it will never lead to any (better) objective analysis.